bathroom floor retiling poor job

After some 4 years the floor tiles at the 1st flr bathroom became detached from the dittra mat below and had to be redone. Constant rocking, cracked grout lines, pretty annoying.
But what is more annoying is the poor job that follows, I decided to have some views on this.

The cause: detachment of dittra mat from the ply beneath (suspended timber floor) which gradually propagated to the rest of the tiles. Apart from that work from the previous people remains intact and of high standard across the bathroom. Moving forward...

I called in a tiler recommended by a friend but made the no.1 mistake to not check his bathroom work in person. I thought it was a small scale job, should have known better after 2 bathrooms and a kitchen

The floor is 3 sqrm area and the job was to

carefully remove and clean the existing 30x60 tiles ( had kept 5 new as well)

check floor and prepare dittra mat again

retile, regrout, reseal

I am very disappointed by the quality of the end work. First day they removed the tiles and glued back the dittra. After returning from work last night the tiles were down but something was not right. I noticed lippage everywhere, evident by losing grout lines viewed at angles, sliding my toes over the they were caught on edges and corners. Far more than usual.

Single point lighting can pretty much tell the story. Never seen work like this in my life.

A tiles in front of the door has a chip the size of my little fingernail. How can you miss or put this down when provided with perfect tiles. Two wall tiles were chipped, possibly from pulling the floor tile upwards on removal. Door was taken out and put back in with chips from pry bar at the base.

I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, so brought all this to his attention the morning after. He said it was his fault for not explaining in advance that tiles are now a bit warped over time and from removal. It was not possible to achieve perfect edges!

I placed a spirit level on top of a tile and also placed the facing side of a new tile on fitted tiles. There is minimal rocking, almost non-existent, any visible gaps are in the tenth of the millimetre. How exactly can tiles warp from the original perfect fit and now have lippage of over 1mm? Please tell me there is a possibility and I will put it at rest..........

He offered a discount but the entire point of having a pro (doubt) was to achieve a good quality finish. Having now seen the finished sealant I have no doubt his quality standard is poor and lacks attention. He hasn't cleaned/removed the old seals properly, there is bleeding into grout lines, smudges all over and tear.

Don't know what to say, is this unprofessional work? I could have done better...

The "tiler" should have realised that a remove and re-install is a very risky strategy and very rarely is an effective repair.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your input. I have unfortunately paid 30% for some work and materials.

Can you elaborate on removal and re-install process? I appreciate it is a nightmare job to remove and reuse tiles, on this occasion they were completely detached from the floor which is why this course was considered.

Is there any merit to the warping argument, which from simple checks does not appear as evident. Not least to the extend suggested.
In fact looking closer it is obvious the placement is poor and a levelling system could have been used instead of just spacers.

It does look an awful job. I wouldn't have fitted back over the used matting. Should have pulled it up and started again.
Have never used the dittra.
Over the last few years I've always used 6mm hardie backers on wooden floors.
Also looks like the toilet was left in situ, should have been removed too for a decent job.
It's not an acceptable standard in my view.